


13 Years in Albania

by hslades



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Quidditch, Tom Riddle X Quidditch, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hslades/pseuds/hslades
Summary: What if Tom Riddle loved Quidditch, and had always dreamed about being a professional Quidditch player.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 13
Collections: Quidditch





	13 Years in Albania

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> EarlGreyPanic wanted a Tom Riddle Quidditch fic, so I got a couple of ciders and wrote this last night. 
> 
> She has also helped by beta'ing the piece.

It had not been the magic or being ‘special’ that he had loved when he first got to Hogwarts. He’d always known he was unique, and the magic they had learned in his classes had been so elemental and easy to learn. No, it had been flying, no one had told him how truly free you could feel with the wind rushing through your hair and only a broom between your legs. 

From the first flying lesson, he had known this was it for him. When Albert Avery had told him about the sport, he had been sure he wanted in. He was good enough for the Slytherin Quidditch team, he knew it. And damn it, he was the only heir of Salazar Slytherin, that alone should be enough for a spot on the team. He went to the open practice, hopes high. But all Quidditch Captain Robert Fawley said was, “We don’t pick first years, Riddle.”

Fawley hadn’t said he wasn’t good enough, but Tom wanted to be better, he wanted to be the best just like he was in his academic pursuits. Every Saturday morning, he went out, got a crooky _Silver Arrow_ out of the broom shed and trained. He trained and trained, rain or sunshine. Naturally, he got better and even dared to say he got good. Still, he didn’t make it into the team. Fawley had said something about not being sure Tom could replicate what he did on the shitty broom compared to the high-class brooms Abraxus’ father had donated to the team. _Utter bullshit_.

Every time Tom went to the open practice; he wouldn’t make the team. Every time he didn’t make the team; Fawley’s excuses progressively got worse. New hope bloomed in his fourth year when William Burke became Captain, the result, sadly enough, was the same. “We’ve already got a world-class Seeker in Selwyn. I’m sorry, Riddle, try again next year?” 

Tom knew he was better, smarter and faster than that doofus Donald Selwyn. This was the last straw; his desire to gain influence within the Slytherin common rooms had grown over the years. But he felt like they would always see him as the orphan, the half-blood, the boy that grew up in the dirty muggle world. 

He researched his family's history in his entire fourth year. Once he had exhausted the Hogwarts Library, he turned up his charm and got Slughorn to write him an unlimited access slip to the restricted section. That was where he finally struck gold during the winter holidays of his fifth year. He found an obscure book about the desolate private chamber of the Founders of the school. He found the proof he needed to convince the boys in his dorm that he was the best leader for their little group. What could be better than the heir of Slytherin leading a group of ambitious Slytherins?

The perfect opportunity to let the Slytherins know he was the heir and conceal his link to the basilisk in Salazar’s private chamber, came when he found the half-giant with one of his grotesque pets. Two birds with one stone. One less subhuman at Hogwarts and a much to easy suspect for Headmaster Dippet to believe in.

Later, he would say that July 1943 was the turning point where he couldn’t escape his path towards Lord Voldemort. It was inevitable. The more the door to the life of Tom Riddle, Quidditch enthusiast, closed. The more he desperately wanted to succeed within his chosen path, the path of Lord Voldemort, the path of world domination.

Feeble-minded Slytherins soon flocked to his cause, they all wanted to start a pureblood revolution then and there. However, he knew what the best course of action was. Build slow, build quietly, indoctrinate people to play on the beliefs their parents embedded in them since birth. And once your support was great enough, the next step would be to create chaos. Undermine the trust of the ordinary people in the government. The first information given out to the masses was just something as logical as:

“The Ministry is bogged down with bureaucracy. The country needs strong leadership to overcome this crisis.”

  * Pamphlet by the Castus Society, 1969.



He didn’t mention he was the strong leader of the Castus Society was hinting towards, but they were his puppets. These influential Sacred 28 members had infiltrated the ministry and Gringotts after they’d graduated Hogwarts. They buttered up the country for his return and the start of the War.

He had done one last thing for Tom Riddle, the boy he was until fourteen years old. Like true snakes, Robert Fawley, William Burke and Donald Selwyn had joined his ranks. He had often overheard them complaining about not getting into the inner circle while younger men like Abraxus’ son Lucius did. So he had told them, they could receive the Mark, if they just went on this one easy mission. Without any of the squad leaders, it was some ‘rite of passage.’ All Death Eaters had done it. They had fallen to their knees and almost cried, “Thank you, My Lord, thank you for finally finding us worthy,”

That was all complete and utter bollocks. He didn’t need to send his trusted soldiers on missions to prove themselves. What he did require, however, was for Selwyn, Burke and Fawley to walk right into an Order’s trap. 

He dreamed of catching the snitch in the House Cup Final and all his housemates celebrating with him in the Slytherin common room, for the first time since the beginning of fourth year.

In the end, Tom Riddle had won.

Lord Voldemort, however, had not prepared for such a long war. And he certainly hadn’t prepared for a nutjob predicting the second coming of a Saviour of Wizard-kind. No strong, accomplished, talented wizard like Albus Dumbledore, the wizard that ‘saved’ the world from Gellert Grindelwald. No, it had been a seed in a random wizard’s ball sack when he first heard the prophecy, utterly ridiculous.

He had done what was expected of him, moved heaven and earth to find the damn bastard after he was born. Got the parents’ best friend to betray them with the standard sales pitch. Went down to Godric’s Hollow. He defused the pathetic threat of the dad, with a flick of his wand. And truly planned to get rid of the kid. However, first the mum threw her life away protecting the little brat. His second attempt merely marked the baby, hit the wall and made the entire house unstable, he knew there was some ancient magic protecting this damn baby. For once in his life, he couldn’t be bothered to do the research into the ancient magic. This was his chance, his only chance to go back to his first love in the wizarding world, back to quidditch.

Lord Voldermort vanished that evening in Godric’s Hollow and wouldn’t return for quite some time. Tom Riddle, however, reappeared under a false name in Albania.

Quidditch players usually didn’t play professionally after they had reached their forties. A rare number of players played on into their late forties. Thomas Steward only started playing quidditch professionally when he arrived in Albania in 1981 at the ripe age of 54. Excellent flying skills, honed over decades of secret training, and a tiny bit of dark magic, made it possible for him to play professionally. The rush that coursed through his veins the first time he flew out to the deafening applause for the Kuç Serpents was indescribable. 

He knew he had always been a good Seeker; he knew it was just the Slytherin’s prejudices that had kept him from the team. His suspicions were confirmed when the Albanian coach owled him the day he was eligible to play for the country. It might not have been England, but it was still a national team. Selwyn had never even reached a professional career; he had made sure of that.

He had spent five years enjoying life touring to the smaller quidditch countries of the world playing games in the most remote stadium on the most beautiful spots on the earth. His teammates became the family he had never had. Sure, they respected him for being so fit for his age. Thomas Steward was around a decade younger than Tom Riddle, it was just simpler to explain. He had found the name Steward in an ancient book about the descendants of Salazar Slytherin, right next to his direct ancestors, the Gaunts. They also respected his status of being the descendant of a great wizard; the name Steward had caught his eye during his research into Salazar Slytherin in Hogwarts. It was a long-extinct branch of the Slytherin’s family tree; however, there were just enough rumours they went underground after a feud with the Gaunt family over who had been the more important branch of the tree. It still gave him the title, heir of Slytherin, he had held his entire life in the wizarding world. And as it had in his latter years in Hogwarts, his title demanded respect from his teammates, something Tom secretly still craved.

His teammates, however, also talked about how they desperately wanted to go to a world cup. They knew this team had the potential to be the first Albanian team ever to make it to a world cup. He knew he could make sure they’d make it if he wanted to.

And in the run-up to the 1994 World Cup, he wanted to. So in the years before they won everything. His teammates couldn’t believe it. “Good things come to those who work hard,” was all Naim Gashi’s, the team’s captain, said. 

Tom knew better, waiting for things to happen, took decades and still nothing would happen. The only safe bet was and had always been, Dark Magic. So he used it, and copious amounts of Felix Felicis. 

It was a shame the world cup was in England. The Felix Felicis wouldn’t have worked on a game on that level anyway. But if it wasn’t for the location of the world cup, he could’ve still boosted the team with some Dark Magic. In Britain, that wasn’t the case. The Aurors were undoubtedly on high alert due to the previous war and the rise of his former followers. The latter had too much self-preservation to defend their values in public after he had vanished.

And now he was here in his picturesque home against the rock formations in Kuç, southern Albania. His teammates had enjoyed their time at the World Cup, preservation to and honestly, he had enjoyed himself. They had lost all their games. Without magic, they were not on par with the top countries in the world, but they did learn a lot, and they gave Bulgaria one hell of a game. He had a couple near misses of his old followers thinking he’d look somewhat familiar.

“Ireland has won the 1994 Quidditch World Cup. However, we at World Wizard News are sure that in many countries, that wouldn’t be the big story in the papers tomorrow.” The Charmed Radio buzzed. The headline caught Tom’s attention. He dropped his book and focused on the radio’s voice.

“Masked men interrupted the celebrations of the Irish fans, which caused chaos but scattered after the appearance of the feared Dark Mark in the night sky.”

Tom flicked his wand to stop the radio from broadcasting. Damn feeble-minded Slytherin’s, they were genuinely useless without a leader. They had just wholly skipped the slow build-up he had implemented on the eve of the first war, and even that didn’t work out the way he wanted it. 

Their actions had once again thrown a wrench in his quidditch dreams and his ability to quietly retire. And now, due to their efforts, there must be people on the lookout for him. Both former followers trying to be on the top of the world again or the boy, if Dumbledore had already told him the prophecy.

Staying in the shadow was not an option anymore. He had to come back to Britain, take on the mantle of Lord Voldemort once again. Take over the world and kill the boy; it was the only way he could ever return to his safe place and his life as Thomas Steward. The door to the path he had wanted as an 11-year-old was closed once more. But at least he had had these 13 years in Albania.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So... What do you think?
> 
> The way he primed the country ahead of the First Wizarding War is basically my of the top knowledge of the NSDAP and Germany in the late 1920s early 1930s.


End file.
